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If the number of convicts or felons is so high that they constitute a voting bloc

2 million in US jails at any given time. That is almost 1% of the population. Since these people get out, and yet can't vote, let's say that only a few do not re-offend and end up as lifers under 3-strike law (like 2 drug possession and then getting in a fight == life, yes, it happened). So, 5% felonies?

Oh wait, never mind. 64 million Americans, or about 21% of the population has been arrested. So, yes, if that's not a significant amount of people, I don't know what is. And that shows up in background checks.

http://yubanet.com/usa/65-Mill...

Do I know someone who as done time? Of course. Who doesn't?

I don't know anyone who has done time. At least not more than a day or two in a city jail.

So you DO know someone who has done time. And how can you be certain that some of the people you know don't have a hidden past? It's not like most people are going to advertise it. 65 million Americans with criminal records

NEW YORK, March 23, 2011 - More than one in four U.S. adults -- roughly 65 million people --have an arrest or conviction that shows up in a routine criminal background check, and a new report from the National Employment Law Project finds that these Americans are facing unprecedented barriers to employment. With the rapidly expanding use of background checks, employers are routinely, and often illegally, excluding all job applicants who have criminal records from consideration, no matter how minor or dated their offenses.

The new report highlights the widespread and illegal use of blanket no-hire policies by providing numerous examples of online job ads posted on Craigslist, including some by major corporations, that effectively bar significant portions of the U.S. population from work opportunities. Because of their blunt impact and extreme overreach, these blanket no-hire policies have become the subject of increasing litigation, attracting heightened scrutiny from the courts and concerned policymakers. At the same time, 92 percent of employers conduct criminal background checks, according to a 2010 Society for Human Resources Management survey.

"The fast-growing use of criminal background checks casts an extraordinarily wide net, potentially ensnaring millions of Americans who have an arrest or other record that shows up in a routine check," said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project. "These background checks are supposed to promote safety in the workplace, but many employers have gone way overboard, refusing to even consider highly qualified applicants just because of an old arrest or conviction. They're not even bothering to ask what the arrest or conviction was for, how far in the past it was, whether it's in any way related to the job, or what the person has done with his or her life since," said Owens.

The NELP report, entitled "65 Million ‘Need Not Apply': The Case for Reforming Criminal Background Checks for Employment," surveys online job ads posted on Craigslist in five major cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Atlanta. The survey found numerous examples in which extreme requirements precluded consideration of anyone with a criminal record, in clear violation of federal civil rights law. Major companies, such as Domino's Pizza, the Omni Hotel, and Adecco USA, were just some of the employers that listed entry-level jobs on Craigslist—ranging from warehouse workers to delivery drivers to sales clerks—that unambiguously shut the door on applicants with criminal records:

And with more than a million people in jail at any one time ...

And that doesn't count the 1 in 10 that pass through juvie.

take it from a less merit worthy program. You've already got nearly $700B tax payer dollars. If you'd like some suggestions how about starting here:

• Git'mo $118M
• nukes $29.12B
• Foreign military financing $4.5B+

Apparently they can...

The FBI and the military are spying on non violent politcal activists now. Given that we have Alito on the supreme court who supports the power of the "unitary executive," and given that Bush lied to us about always getting a warrant before engaging in phone tapping (in New Mexcio 2004 google it), it's utterly foolish to allow Bush to have the power to spy on anyone in violation of FISA. Lists of links showing Bush's FBI and military spy on domestic activists now from a post to William Arkin's excellent early warning blog at the Washington Post: http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/ 01/nsa_expands_its.html

American Media Dodging U.N. Surveillance Story By Norman Solomon Media Beat March 6, 2003 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2226&printer_fr iendly=1

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The unholy trinity of electronic snooping: Bolton, Negroponte and Hayden By Wayne Madsen Online Journal May 5, 2005

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NSA spy program hinges on state-of-the-art technology By Shane Harris National Journal January 20, 2006 http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33 212&printerfriendlyVers=1&

### NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases By Walter Pincus Washington Post Sunday, January 1, 2006; A08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/12/31/AR2005123100 808_pf.html

### New Documents Show FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Targeting Peaceful Protest Activity in Colorado ACLU Press Release December 8, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/22884prs200512 08.html

### New Documents Show FBI Targeting Environmental and Animal Rights Groups Activities as "Domestic Terrorism" ACLU Press Release December 20, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/23124prs200512 20.html

### Secret Pentagon Unit May Have Gathered and Kept Unauthorized Files on Thousands of Innocent Individuals and Organizations Newsweek Jan 23, 2006 http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/printer_3073 0.shtml

### Protesters Subjected To 'Pretext Interviews' FBI Memo Shows No Specific Threats By Dan Eggen Washington Post Wednesday, May 18, 2005; A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/17/AR2005051701 240_pf.html http://www.aclu-co.org/docket/200406/JTTF_file_sar ah_bardwell_08-02-04.pdf

### Battlespace America: The new Pentagon can peruse intelligence on U.S.citizens and send Marines down Main Street Peter Byrne Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.p l?url=http://www.motherjon es.com/news/outfront/2005/05/battlespace_america.h tml

...because obviously no one can shoulder-surf or social-engineer your PIN, in order to use your system later. And certainly no one can use Play-doh to spoof your fingerprints. Yep. Completely safe.

I would seriously reconsider whatever cred I gave a community which adopted such a name ... unless that was their goal, i.e. Gates, Balmer and Mundie organise some press conference to expound the virtues of closed source, IP and the evils of Open Source.

OT FUD humor